Free State ANC elections next month

An ANC supporter holds a flag of the ANC while the President Jacob Zuma addresses ANC Gauteng Cadre Assembly in Pretoria.
Picture: Phill Magakoe

Bloemfontein - Free State ANC members will get another chance to elect a new leadership next month, a provincial African National Congress official confirmed on Thursday.

Free State ANC spokesman Oupa Khoabane said the provincial task team to oversee the elections met during this week and decided the provincial elective conference would be held on February 23.

The one-day conference for the election of the new provincial executive committee (PEC) would be held in Parys.

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe announced the task team during a press briefing after a national executive committee meeting in Bloemfontein before the start of the Mangaung national elective conference in December last year.

There are 11 women and nine men on the team, which includes Free State ANC chairman Ace Magashule - who represents the party’s NEC on the team.

It followed a successful court challenge by a group of six disgruntled Free State ANC members in the Constitutional Court on the legality of the provincial elective conference held in Parys in June last year.

The court held the Free State PEC elected in 2012 was unlawful.

Khoabane said the task team members would attend regional structures on Monday next week to explain to party members at branch level how the newly run elections would be conducted.

The two conveners of the task team are Free State social development MEC Sisi Ntombela and education MEC Tate Makgoe.